The next Enterprise Digital Summit will take place in Paris, 1rst and 2nd of June. At this occasion, I had a good chat with Bjoern Negelmann, the conference organizer around the preparation of the event, my expectations and of course our perception of digital transformation. Below is the 1rst part (out of 2) of my interview.

Several Lecko customers will talk at the event (Sodexo, Air France, …) as well as great speakers (see detailed agenda there), furthermore, we will present a summary of our last study : ESN vol 8. The conference will be a great opportunity to feel the pulse of digital transformation !

Bjoern: Michel, you will again present the latest key findings from Lecko’s research on the state of the ESN establishment within large companies. What are the three key tags that characterize the key results?

Michel: Beyond ESN establishment, we assess the state and progresses of digital transformation within organisations. But it’s true that the ESN, inspite of it’s virtual nature is, in a way, the materialization of digital transformation, it is the place where new work practices happen.

To answer your question, the 3 tags that summarize the whole story are :

Awareness

Sense of emergency

Lack of practice

Bjoern: At the E20 SUMMIT 2015 you had also presented the results of the 2015 study. What is different in regards to your research approach and the key findings?

Michel: This year we professionalized even more our study by building it in partnership with opinion way, a poll institute, which enabled us to have a scientific approach and collect the perception of digital transformation of a representative set of managers. This way we have an accurate representation of the reality of digital transformation in companies based in France, larger than 5000 employees. Other new stuff : our collaboration with our partner and counterpart in UK, Agile Elephant. The idea is to give an international endeavor to our research and compare results in France to UK and the rest of Europe.

Bjoern Negelmann

Bjoern: What have been the key finding from this year’s additional interrogation of senior managers on their views of the ESN as tool and enabler for the digital transformation. Are they aware of the importance of the connection between the internal and external transformation efforts?

Michel: Managers are not stupid people (!) they are fully aware of the importance of digital transformation. There is even a sense of emergency. They know that their organizations must evolve and soon. They sometimes panic because they feel a need for emergency but they don’t know what to do and where to start. They are also worried because they understand that digital is going to change the game, but who is going to take advantage of the new deal ?

Bjoern: What are the key use cases for the ESN? At the conference discussions in the past we have discussed the importance of the business focus for the usage of the ESN. Do the results show this approach?

Michel: Yes, with maturity, social usages are more business oriented and no more limited to few basic usages made by pioneers like collaborative tech watch ! From our customers, we see more and more core business use cases deployed in a large scale. Examples :